Wednesday, October 28, 2015

A week or so ago, my mom came over to visit. And since she lives out in the boonies, of course she had errands she wanted to run in the "city", one of which being she wanted to look at a new phone plan/carrier. As I was helping her research, I realized that there may be better options for my husband and myself as well. So after she was done (she settled on Cricket btw which has great deals as well and on an awesome network), I got to work looking up for myself.

Now if you've been reading a lot of my posts, you'll know I posted a while ago about a cell phone carrier that I've been with for a few years that I love, Ting (red my blog article on it here). They are consistently rated the highest in customer service and that is part of why it is hard for me to leave them but there are a few negatives: 1.) You have to pay full price for your phone (unless you can find an amazing deal online somewhere). At first this wasn't an issue, you save so much each month it made up for it. But now phones are basically computers and they cost about $500-$600 new. My husband and I were waiting to save up money for a new phone (not even the newest!), while our current phones were driving us crazy with how slow they are! 2.) Speaking of slow, unfortunately most of Ting's phones are on Sprint's network which, apparently, is the slowest of them all. And 3.) For the amount of data we were using, there were actually cheaper plans out there for the two of us. With all that being said, I still love Ting, and their idea is awesome, I just recommend it more for people who use very little to no data and don't need a newer phone.

At the time I had settled on Ting a few years ago, I had never had a smartphone before, so I didn't know how much data I'd be using and, therefore, how much I would need in a plan. I liked that Ting was a no contract, and that you only paid for what you used. Plus, there weren't as many options then for cheaper and no contract phone plans. THINGS HAVE CHANGED. This is a consumer's market. With the internet, people are able to do more research, find the best options, and make complaints/suggestions, especially publicly, which has forced companies to change their plans.

So down to my findings: the cheapest and best plan for two people is MetroPCS's 2 for $50 plan. It comes with unlimited text and talk and up to 1GB of data for each line at 4GLTE speeds, and unlimited at slower speeds. My husband and I generally used about 1GB between the two of us, so we should be fine. They use tMobile's network which isn't the best, but it's better than what we were on. They do offer discounts on newer phones as well and the best part was: they were giving away a $50 discount to new customers that had their old account number and pin on the Samsung Galaxy Core Prime which is at a $49.99 discounted price. Meaning, we got our phones for free! Oh and all their plans are no contract :)

So do some research. Find the best plan for you. There are so many companies out there now offering customizable or unlimited plans for much cheaper than the main companies. Plus you're not locked into a contract or only able to update every so often. That's so 10 years ago! ;)